Specific Immune Response
Innate immune responses lack specificity and memory, two important characteristics of specific immune responses. Immunologic specificity means that the response is directed at a specific antigen, while immunologic memory refers to the ability to have a fast, amplified response after an initial exposure to an antigen.
These characteristics are extremely important, for they are the theoretical basis for vaccinations. Vaccination is essentially induction of a specific immune response and immunologic memory by planned exposure to an antigen in a manner that does not produce disease.Lymphocytes are the essential leukocytes that develop a specific immune response. Their functions in this response include (1) antigen recognition, (2) antibody production, (3) cytotoxic attack on infected cells, (4) immunologic memory, and (5) regulation of the specific immune response. An individual lymphocyte does not perform all of these functions, but rather subpopulations or subtypes of lymphocytes are responsible for different aspects of the specific immune response. in an attempt to generalize a very complex process, this chapter describes the specific immune response by considering the different types of lymphocytes and the roles that each has in the overall response.